Biden announces over $600M for electric grid resilience during visit to survey Hurricane Milton damage

US President Joe Biden made yet another trip to a community devastated by a hurricane with his October 13 visit to Florida, where he announced more than half a billion dollars in projects for electric grid resilience, as costlier and more frequent storms continue to strain the federal government’s disaster-relief funding, Report informs via CNN.

“I’m here in Florida for the second time in two weeks to survey the damage from another catastrophic storm, Hurricane Milton,” Biden said after an aerial tour of the storm’s damage in St. Petersburg. “Thankfully, the storm’s impact was not as cataclysmic as we had predicted.”

But, he added, “for some individuals, it was cataclysmic.”

Biden empathized with Florida residents who had lost everything, describing them as “heartbroken and exhausted, and their expenses are piling up.”

He thanked local officials who were impacted personally by the storm, saying their work was a testament to “the resilience of the people of west Florida.”

His visit came as the president and other leaders have urged Congress to pass additional funding for disaster-relief and small-business programs as extreme weather events this year have rapidly drained the government’s aid funds.

House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated Sunday that Congress will not return early to pass additional disaster-relief funding. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Sunday the agency has enough funding for “immediate” needs but stressed that Congress will need to act swiftly to sufficiently fund the agency when it returns after the election.

The $612 million in funding Biden announced Sunday, which comes as almost 1.5 million customers struggle with power outages, includes $94 million for projects specifically in Florida, a White House official said, with $47 million going to Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47 million for Switched Source to partner with Florida Power and Light.

“These investments are part of the President’s commitment to making long-term investments that protect, enhance, and upgrade our nation’s electric grid, especially in the face of extreme weather events,” the official said in a statement Saturday.

The funds will be disbursed through the Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program.

Biden’s visit to St. Petersburg to survey damage from Hurricane Milton came after separate trips the president made earlier this month to Florida, along with visits in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina to tour areas ravaged by Hurricane Helene.